Confusion

Upon entering the Sanur Starbucks the other day, I was greeted by the woman at the counter, who then said something that sounded like "Dee ozoo all?" I figured she must be speaking Indonesian and that this was a word I do not know.

Noting my failure to understand, she repeated the expression very slowly, enunciating each syllable. "Dee-Ooo-Zoo-All?"

Oh! Hang on ... The usual! She was asking whether I wanted my usual coffee drink. Seperti biasa. Lol.

When you are expecting Indonesian, but English comes out, and yet with a heavy Indonesian accent, things can get confusing. The same thing happens with my own pronunciation of Indonesian words, wherein the response may be, 'Sorry, I don't speak English.'

In fact, it happened just the other day with the word Bingung, American pronunciation, 'bing-Goong, meaning 'confused'. And my American accent did indeed 'confuse' the hearer.

And then we have a third language called 'rap music', which is very popular among the young Indonesians.

So it happened that my friend, Iadi, wanted to know what does it mean, Ma Nigga. 

Whoa, Iadi. I means that you, a non-black person, neva, eva say Ma Nigga!

All

All I ever wanted really was a warm room, rain tapping on a window, two easy chairs, a television, a faithful dog at my feet, embers winking and whispering on the hearth. Trust. Devotion. Sureness. A son, a daughter, calling on the phone, just checking in. And in the summer picnics, and in the winter Christmas, and in the spring long walks under damp new suns, and in the autumn pungent, papery leaves to rake into mounds which would sleep the night huddled beneath a cold orange moon. Simplicity. Peace. Love like a tall and graceful elm with roots descending to the center of the earth. Only this, nothing more.

Back on the American Front

I have seen numerous editorials and comments post-Las Vegas shooting painting Americans as a people in love with guns. The fact is that fewer than 30 percent of Americans own a gun, while a lesser percentage of that 30 percent own multiple guns. A tiny percent of that lesser percentage are nut cases that own multiple guns. The fact is, most Americans would not know how to load, fire, or maintain a gun. Of the hundreds of people I have known in my long life, a mere handful hav...e been gun owners. Most Americans, including gun owning Americans, are fully in favor of common sense gun control measures, from background checks to registration to limitations on automatic weapons. Let us squarely place the blame not on the American people or a fictional romance with firearms, but on the big money behind the NRA and the gun industry and its purchase of irresponsible, gutless politicians whose only shield is the shamelessly disingenuous hijacking of the second amendment for the sake of filling their pockets and advancing their careers. They are fully complicit in the murder that took place in Las Vegas.

Olden Days

Having spoken of lamentable present day realities, let us speak for a moment of olden days.

Up until the time I was about 50, I spent several weeks of every summer in the High Cascades of Oregon -- Camping, fishing, hiking, climbing, swimming, boating.  I hiked seven miles up hill to the base of the peak of Mt. Jefferson, carrying a backpack for a two night stay on the shore of the snow-water lake there. Reaching the highest ridge before the little valley that dipped down to the base of the peak, I decided to descend cross-country rather than follow the trail, down through the shale rock, between the hearty tufts of grasses and huckleberry bushes, past deep blue pools, one of which was bridged by a slowly melting snowbank, over the final crags of stone and to the spreading green below, shot through with wildflowers every color of the rainbow.

I climbed four times the 7200 foot hill known as Olallie Butte, scrabbling up the final barren hump on hands and knees. two feet forward, one foot back. We -- I, my brother and our friend -- made a challenge of seeing who could reach the top first and in the fastest time. 

I rowed the length of Olallie Lake, 3 miles, and then rowed back against the wind. 

I climbed nearly every trail and visited nearly every lake in that wide and rugged wilderness; and if there was a hill above the highest lake, I climbed that hill to see what was on the other side. 

In Bali, already 55 years of age, I swam almost every day; and in Thailand, we boated, swam and snorkeled the day long at Krabbe Island; and in Bangkok, we walked miles to visit temples and markets and the sites of the city. In Georgetown, Malaysia, we walked from morning to evening, visiting the historic sites, stopping off at cafes and local markets. 

The point is, I have not always been a cripple. I was strong, and agile, and sure of foot, and full of energy, and seemingly tireless. And when the day was done, I would go out at night and enjoy the bar or the club with friends.

These are the things that MS has taken from me. This is the me that MS has murdered. I remember it now as if it were a fiction, and yet I was there, once upon a time, in the flesh -- and not long ago, at that. 

You don't 'get better' from MS. You don't recover. You don't regain what is lost. You don't 'get back on your feet' again. You lose, little by little, irrepressibly. Little by little, you disappear.  

The End of Something on Nusa Penida

Took a short trip to Nusa Penida Island, which I wrote about in my other blog, Mypracticalparadise.com.  

But what I want to write about here is how painfully evident it became that my condition has profoundly worsened over the last couple years. Two years ago to the day, as Facebook cheerily reminds me, I was on a trip to the north coast of Bali, where we enjoyed a day-long adventure of boating, swimming and snorkeling, during which I experienced no significant difficulties with physical ability. 

Yesterday and the day before, however, merely walking was a challenge. Most of the tourist sites on Nusa Penida start from hillsides far above the sea. Visitors walk down a rocky path so that they can view the massive rocks that rise from the ocean, the crashing waves, the aquamarine pools, and so on. It was soon apparent, however, that my legs were far too weak and wobbly to convey me to these destinations. The two young men who were in our party had to constantly hold onto my arms and steady me. When we waded out to the boat that would take us back to Bali, I had to be pulled from one end and pushed from the other so that I could get into the damn boat. 

Honestly, it was acutely embarrassing. I felt foolish and burdensome and keenly depressed. 

I was truly unaware of how bad things had gotten; for, most days, I simply stay at home or in the immediate neighborhood, never having to call upon much physical effort. But it did not occur to me that I would be any less able than ever to do whatever I was called upon to do. 

It was a rude awakening to the deterioration that has quietly and steadily been at work in my body. Multiple sclerosis is a matter of steady, relentless subtraction, wasting, deterioration. More and more, you don't just have MS; you are MS. 

Not a Good Night

I am alone most of the time these days. And I am in pain most of the time. For more than a year now, this relentless pain has been crawling about from my neck to my shoulder to my back, a bit better one day, a bit worse the next. It is as if there is a foreign creature entwined inextricably with my nervous system, endlessly eating and tearing. I feel like excising the entire right side of my body. Just being done with it. I am half a man with or without it. The pain was so bad this evening that I decided to try to kill it with alcohol. I was not successful. I am exhausted, and depressed, and alone. And I begin to wonder why. So many things seem, in hindsight, so senseless, so random, so pointless. My own narrative falls apart, and I begin to wonder which of a thousand mistakes is behind my damnation. The past is ended, is refuted by the present, and the present has no plan, no goal. I am abandoned. I am become an orphan. I am become my own ceaseless pain. How strange it is to have gone this far in life and gathered not a single true friend. 

The Vietnam War

During this week, I have watched the ten part PBS series, The Vietnam War, directed by noted historian Ken Burns. This is a thorough, and a fascinating documentary of the war, from the time of the French colonial struggle to the bitter culmination of the American defeat some 30 years later; fascinating, heartbreaking, and, sadly, eerily pertinent, given the resurgent nationalism of our time, a beating of drums that should have been eternally stilled by that great and senseles...s slaughter that we all watched unfold. This carefully, minutely detailed account serves well in undoing the sort of 'Readers' Digest' version of history that develops over time, dispelling the clichés, restoring fullness to the figures involved and the decisions that were made. Just as one example, it is interesting to note the deeply felt reticence of President Johnson to become very significantly involved in the war. Through official records and through voice recordings, we learn of his conviction from the beginning that America had nothing to gain from this war, and of his repugnance at the thought of becoming embroiled to the point where his own initial aspirations of a 'war against poverty' at home were so steadily overshadowed by a shooting war in faraway Asia. One president, it seems, would say, "We'll do this much, and no more", while the next would say, "Okay, this much, plus this, but then no more"; until, finally, we found ourselves with both feet planted, hip-deep in the muck, invested to the hilt. Step by step by step, we found ourselves not on the periphery but smack dab in the middle. This is how it happens -- through aggressive talk, through demonizing, through ignorance, through pride, through stubbornness, through exaggeration, through a short-view of history, through a failure to appreciate the small picture in favor of inventing a big picture that is composed of at least 90 percent paranoia. One hears the same echoes once again -- America, love it or leave it ... My country, right or wrong ... empty, self-contradictory slogans that lead to senseless disaster. One hopes that this series will be attended to closely by millions, for this is most definitely a history that we don't want to repeat.

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1. The Vietnam War PBS

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